


chance encounters

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adaar is a Roguish Mercenary, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Cullen Remains a Templar, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Kinloch Hold Never Fell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-01 00:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12693165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Someone here had seen the shift taking place in Kinloch Hold, the changes wrought in Orlais and Ostwick and even Denerim, and had asked Ser Gregoire what had changed. Knowing his charges the way he did, he’d assigned Cullen to the task. And ten years later, this was where it had led him. To Kirkwall.To, it turned out, playing city guard to a charmingly roguish Qunari who was trying to get up to some mischief of one sort or another.





	chance encounters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lumateranlibrarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumateranlibrarian/gifts).



It wasn’t often that Cullen found himself so frustrated by his work. Being a templar, it was his calling. He was good at it. Good enough that he’d been wanted all over Thedas to help improve the Circles, find ways to build relationships with the mages that didn’t end with abominations and death. He had, he thought, the Hero of Ferelden to thank for that. A mage herself, she’d given people something new to consider regarding magic and the people who harnessed that power. Which was, somehow, how he found himself in Kirkwall now.

Someone here had seen the shift taking place in Kinloch Hold, the changes wrought in Orlais and Ostwick and even Denerim, and had asked Ser Gregoire what had changed. Knowing his charges the way he did, he’d assigned Cullen to the task. And ten years later, this was where it had led him. To Kirkwall.

To, it turned out, playing city guard to a charmingly roguish Qunari who was trying to get up to some mischief of one sort or another. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed. “You do realize I have an actual job to do, do you not?” The question was only mostly rhetorical. Every time he asked it, he hoped he’d receive a better answer than the one he always got. And Kirkwall was worse off than most places; some of the answers he got were pretty bad admittedly. Something about it invited evil thoughts and deeds; he couldn’t say why. But everyone always seemed just that little more on edge here, always watching, always waiting, expecting the worst and bracing for disappointment. Still, his own vocation took precedent. Most of the time. Except for now. With her. As he waited for her to give him a response worthy of his time. “Protecting the people of this city from demons.”

The Qunari in question grinned at him from the cave entrance he’d found her skulking about. Tall and broad, she was a spectacular woman, it could easily be said. Gold jewelry wound around her horns, capped the sharp edges, and glinted in the late afternoon light. Her hair, white and long, hung in an intricate braid over one shoulder. Though she hadn’t yet spoken, he anticipated the lilting, pleasant, amused tones her voice would soon release upon him.

“You’re very far from demons here on the Wounded Coast, my friend,” she said finally.

Cullen was a Templar. And more than that, he was a grown man. Grown men didn’t blush. And if they did, they blamed the sweltering heat of the day for the red that spread across their cheeks, not that he would know anything about that. It was just so very hard this time of year. With armor and robes and long, skirted clothing beneath, Templars weren’t made for the oppressive heat. At least Cullen wasn’t. “Not so far as you’d think,” he replied. Eyebrows raised, he lifted his fingers and wiggled them. “There can be demons anywhere there are people to be victimized.”

“You mean people to be tempted.”

He shook his head, mind spinning with the need to convey is point. It was always like this when Templar business came up. There were so many misconstrued theories and beliefs that lingered. His battle was a long one, and fraught. Though many people had come around to his way of thinking, some still balked at it. “That’s the Order’s official stance, not mine.”

Adaar—Herah, she’d told him to call her Herah once, though he refused to do so outside of the confines of his own mind—shifted her stance and planted her hands on her hips. He could have taken this as a threat; her deadly blades were within very easy reach now, but he knew better. She was the sort who sometimes forgot she carried so much power about her, sleek and slippery though it might have been. Most of her sort and style kept to the shadows. They did not treat the daylight as a friend. They did not skulk under the sun. But Herah had always been different. “And what is your stance?”

Cullen’s chin lifted. “That everyone should be protected from tempters who would do them harm. Templars are uniquely trained to combat that.”

Her teeth formed small, even rows of white in her mouth as her smile widened, her lips stretching to accommodate her ever increasing joy. One day, he thought she might be all consumed by it. One day, he thought he might like to be, too.

A foolish notion for a Templar such as him. She wouldn’t think twice about him for one thing. And for another, it would be complicated. He was just the law to her surely, anathema, something to be dodged and ducked at every opportunity, something to be teased and mocked and toyed with in turn if she couldn’t evade him.

Clearing his throat, he squinted up at the sky, blue melting into orange into red. Kirkwall had its charms sometimes. Not least of all the preponderance of interesting company it allowed for. And the romantic sunsets along the coast.

“Please tell me I can look the other way about whatever you’re doing,” he said, begging really, needing a distraction from the earnestness of his own beliefs. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d hauled her in to Aveline’s office only to find her turned loose almost immediately, but it had to number in the dozens by now. “This is just you setting up camp, maybe.”

“Sure.” Adaar’s gaze lowered and then lifted again, flirtatious and innocent all at once. He wasn’t charmed and he didn’t buy it. “I like to camp.”

Cullen’s brow arched and his lips thinned. A twitch at the corner of his mouth threatened to give him away, but he held it back in time. Growing up in a Circle, it sure did teach a person how to keep a straight face. Barring the occasional blush, of course. “Uh huh.”

“Well, it was worth a shot.” Adaar shrugged, good-natured. “How is it you always find me at my worst?”

“I highly doubt this is your worst.” Dry, he hadn’t meant the comment to be a compliment, but she seemed to take it as such, preening a bit at the attention. From what he could gather, she was part of a Tal-Vashoth mercenary group and one that, unlike so many other Qunari and Tal-Vashoth who found themselves on Kirkwall’s shores, they kept their brand of trouble self-contained.

He’d never come across a bloodbath involving the Valo-Kas anyway. “How kind of you to say,” she demurred. Somehow, it wasn’t as ridiculous as he might have expected it to be. “I didn’t realize you thought so highly of me.”

Rolling his eyes, he jerked his head further down the path, back toward home and toward whatever charges Aveline would somehow find reason to set aside. Impressive, all things considered, and a good indicator of Adaar’s character. Aveline cut nobody slack, except Hawke, and she regularly stumbled into the doing of good deeds for the people of Kirkwall. Perhaps Adaar was similar enough. Maker knew Cullen allowed a lot more of her work to slide than he might have otherwise done.

He narrowed his eyes, thoughtful. “You don’t know Marian Hawke, do you?”

“Who?” Adaar asked, walking side by side with him. Her legs stretched and her pace threatened to well overtake his and yet at the last moment, she always managed to dial it back. “Hawke?”

“Yes.” Cullen found himself relieved that, if they were acquainted, it wasn’t _well_. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like with two troublemakers running around in the same circles. As it were.

“I think I’ve heard that name.” She chewed her lip and scratched at her chin. “Kaariss has a crush on a woman he calls hawk anyway. Perhaps he meant Hawke all this time. Tell me, does she menace the populace with eyes the color of sapphire and ice?”

“I—” Coughing, he tried to bite back the laugh that threatened to undermine his unruffled Templar demeanor. How would Hawke respond to that, he wondered. With a sarcastic quip and a goodly barb quite likely. “That must be her, of course. There are few enough blue-eyed menaces running about Hightown, Lowtown, and everywhere in between.”

Adaar offered a sloppy, half-ticked quirk of her mouth. “Do you like her, Ser Cullen? This Hawke?”

He coughed again and tried to drag a breath of sea air into his lungs, but all that salt air did was sear his throat. “I—no, not precisely. Not like _that_ anyway.” The truth was, he admired her and appreciated that she did so much for the community, even if a lot of it came with a thorough understanding that destruction often followed in her wake. He supposed there were only so many ways to defeat cartels and slavers and murderers.

“I kid,” she replied rather than allow him to twist in the wind of his own awkward making. He appreciated that about her. She might give him a hard time, but it was never cruel. “Though I can’t say I’m not relieved, too.”

His legs froze, stalling him in his tracks. “You—what?”

Turning toward him, she winked. “I would so hate to have competition.”

*

“Again,” he said, yet somehow not at all surprised to find Adaar here. The only difference this time was he found her on his territory rather than hers. Creeping about the Gallows, she really did seem like one of the shadier people who populated this city. He knew better, of course, and yet he found this shift intriguing. Rarely, except under duress, did she enter the city’s walls. “At least this time I truly am on duty.”

Rising from her crouch near the courtyard, she dusted her hands across her leather-clad thighs. “So you admit to taking strolls near the water at sunset of your own accord?”

“You don’t know my schedule nor my routes,” he answered. “I make no such admission.”

She laughed lightly even though his joke wasn’t one he could call ‘good’ or even ‘passable.’ Warmth swelled inside of him, embarrassed and buoyant in turn. He hadn’t been this… giddy—though that was the wrong word for it, wasn’t it, adults didn’t find themselves giddy about things, certainly not Templars—about anything since his ill-conceived crush on the Hero of Ferelden back when they were compatriots in the Circle. Here, he had none of the restrictions or qualms that had held him back in those days not so very long ago. And yet here he restrained himself.

He’d dedicated himself to the Chantry, not his own various needs and wants. And mostly, it was easy to put them aside. Except when Adaar tricked her way into his life, flitting about it like a moth occasionally drawn to him via circumstance and coincidence. She didn’t do it on purpose, but it sure made his life more difficult when his attention was split so thoroughly.

“You must believe me incompetent if you think I am that ignorant,” she replied. “Not know my favorite Templar’s routes and schedule? What madness is this? Perhaps I choose my targets specifically due to your routes and schedules.”

“I might believe that if I hadn’t just been put on a new rotation.”

Sighing, she shrugged. “Okay, so you got me. I’m just supremely unlucky. Now what do you plan to do with me?”

The warmth of earlier mutated into heat. There were a lot of things he’d have liked to do, none of them planned, but that was neither appropriate nor acceptable. “Take you to the Viscount’s Keep. Again. You might as well lodge there. What are you trying to do anyway?”

She grew as serious as he’d ever seen her; her eyes took on a dark cast and she was as still as a statue and even less emotive. “Would you believe me if I said this guy deserves what’s coming to him?” Her voice, normally so smooth, even hitched as she said it, something he’d have never expected to hear in all his life. She was always assured, always in control, always calm. This, he realized, might not have been the whole truth of her. And even though they were practically the best of friends for how often they found their way into each other’s proximity, he clearly didn’t know her as well as he thought he did.

A thrill of excitement at the undiscovered did battle with sadness in his heart. Learning something new about her was always a boon, but he wouldn’t have wanted it this way if he could help it. “Are you in danger?”

She shook her head. The white of her hair captured the moonlight and held it in thrall. Cullen could understand that feeling well enough. “No.”

When she didn’t volunteer more, he nearly let out a scoff. “Do you need help?”

Unlike Cullen, she actually did scoff, even going so far as to stamp her foot a little, grinding her boot against the stone. “You don’t need to get involved, Templar. He’s not a threat to me.”

His mind reeled at the vehemence of her response. She’d never in her life called him by his job title and she’d never once been so outwardly annoyed at him. This was a night for novelties, which made his next action make far more sense than it otherwise might have.

He waved his hand and took a few steps back. “Beautiful night,” he said. “And peaceful, too. Not a soul in the street.” He didn’t add that he wished her well or that he hoped his trust wasn’t being misplaced. Every instinct in hims screamed to turn around and turn her in. Order, rule of law, that was what kept Kirkwall and its people safe. Adaar was chaos incarnate, so much so he might have accused her of harboring a spirit of some sort if that wasn’t a serious, serious charge to level someone with.

He didn’t expect her to say anything, so he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t. Turning around and getting a brief glance, he saw that she’d already disappeared back into the shadows. He wouldn’t see her again that night, he didn’t think. As he continued to patrol, a thread of guilt wound its way through him. What if he made the wrong choice? What if she was in danger and he hadn’t done everything he could to stop it? Aveline would have put a stop to this nonsense one way or another in the short term, if not the long. He offered up a prayer to the Maker for her safety as she went about whatever latest mad scheme she and her company had accepted payment to complete. It… helped.

Who was he really to act like he had any say in how she completed her job? Even though he didn’t like to think about it, she must have been in many dangerous positions in her time, well before coming to Kirkwall. She could handle herself. She didn’t need him.

And though it didn’t make him feel any better about it—wasn’t it his job to protect people, what if she needed help—it did put things into perspective.

The truth was, he couldn’t save everyone. And Adaar wouldn’t have wanted him to.

That wasn’t how they operated.

And Cullen wouldn’t be the one who changed that, not on his life, not if it meant her disappearing from his completely.

*

“Laugh it up,” Adaar said, which, honestly. Cullen wasn’t given to frivolity for the most part and humor was mostly lost on him, but when she invited it this way… well, who was he to ignore the request?

Through a chuckle, he asked, “Are you all right?” Taking in her rather soaked appearance and thunderous expression, he could guess that she was annoyed, but unharmed. That was just fine with him. Annoyed, he could deal with. Hurt? He wasn’t so sure how he’d handle that.

“What are you doing on the docks?” she asked in a huff, plucking what might have been a crab from the end of her braid. “Isn’t this a little far from home for you?”

Cullen shook his head. “I like ships,” he replied, deadpan.

Adaar sneered, but there was nothing mean about it, just exaggerated disgust at having been caught getting up to no good. Again. “You do not. Somehow you knew I’d be out here. Is it because you’re a Templar? Do they teach you to sniff out trouble and you’ve just decided to use it against me?”

Cullen laughed again. “That’s not how it works, no.” _Not unless you were a mage anyway,_ he thought. Not that he would have reduced his training to _sniffing_ either way. He’d spent too much of his life at it to do that. “Maybe you’re just unlucky. Have you thought of that?” _Or maybe I am_. Kirkwall seemed determined to ruin his life. At least in this way, it didn’t ruin it too badly.

“I must not be that unlucky. At least it’s just _you_ finding me. I suppose it could be much worse.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“Oh, it could actually be Aveline. Or that pup of hers who follows her around. Donnic, is it? He’d never cut me any slack either, I don’t think. And if Aveline knew what I got up to?” She grinned, a little ferocious and very, very attractive. “I don’t think she’d find my smooth-talking ways quite as irresistible if she was the one collecting me from whichever corner of Kirkwall I happened to be in at the time.”

That startled another laugh out of him. Imagining Aveline being charmed by anyone except Donnic was quite a bit more than he could countenance. That would be like Hawke taking something seriously. Or Isabela keeping a bit of innuendo locked behind her teeth instead of voicing it at the earliest opportunity.

He really should stop running into them. They were trouble, the whole lot. Even if they did help out at least as often.

“So you’re saying I’m a soft touch,” Cullen said.

“I don’t have to say it when you prove it every single time you drag me back to the Viscount’s Keep instead of taking me to be locked up and processed the way criminals are supposed to be locked up and processed.” She tilted her head, her hair shifting slightly. Cullen longed to reach out and touch it, perhaps remove it from its braid and run his fingers through the pale, silken strands. “Thank you for that by the way.”

Throat dry, he swallowed. “You’re welcome,” he tried to say, but it came out as, “I don’t mind at all. I like spending time with you.”

Which. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

“I’d prefer it,” he added, “if it wasn’t while you were getting yourself into trouble, but beggars can’t be choosers, can they?”

Adaar’s white brow climbed her forehead and an intrigued sparkle danced in her eye. “Surprisingly forward of you, Ser.”

“I… apologize.” His gut churned and threatened to climb right out of his body and spill across the ground. Better that than more words admittedly, but not by much. “I didn’t mean that to sound like…”

“What it sounds like is you like me.” She stepped forward, closer to him than he thought she’d ever been. Even though they’d known each other for quite some time now, they didn’t often invade one another’s space. He enjoyed the way he had to tip his head up to look at her, straining his neck a bit in the process. He liked that she looked down on him. He liked all of it.

He liked her. A lot.

The least he could do was say so.

So he did. In so many words.

And for his trouble, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the nearest building. A drab, dank warehouse, it had the nice distinction of housing a convenient alcove. Blocking him in, her arms stretched on either side of him, she leaned forward. “How much trouble will I get in for debauching a Templar in the middle of the docks where anyone might see?”

He tried to peek around her, but there was nothing to see except the sky above her head. His vision was filled with her and nothing but.

He liked that, too. A lot.

“Depending on the Templar, I think I can make an exception. I must say, I believe he’d be a very lucky Templar indeed.”

Capturing his mouth in a kiss, she moaned against his lips, bent down a little to get the angle just right. She was massive and he couldn’t have been happier. Grasping hold of her hips, he tried to pull her closer. Of course, given her various advantages, she only moved because she wanted to. And, oh, how glad he was that she wanted to. Her weight and heat pressing against him? He wasn’t sure there was anything quite this good in Thedas. He wasn’t sure he wanted there to be. Even her taste was something so perfectly bold and wonderful that he couldn’t help craving more of it.

And this was just a kiss. Maker, he only imagined…

But not here. “Public indecency,” he said, backing up just a little bit. He needed the space and was, not for the first time, grateful for the relative discretion his clothing afforded him. “I’d have to haul us both in.”

She laughed then and it was as crystal clear as the bubbles in a flute of fine Orlesian champagne, crisp and vibrant. Madame de Fer might have liked to bottle that sound and find a way to transmute it into a liqueur. If anyone could, it would be her. Her magic, she’d cultivated in strange and interesting ways. As dangerous as she could be, she was also a consummate entertainer and host.

_Why think about Madame de Fer at a time like this? She’d be appalled._

Adaar nuzzled at his neck, pressed her lips against the pulsing artery at his throat. He shuddered and clutched at her and very nearly gave into the urges he usually kept well at bay. “Really, I don’t think Aveline would be pleased.”

“So we could scandalize her a bit. And everyone else. Sounds good to me.” Despite her words, she did take a step back and raise her hands in a gesture of innocence. “Kirkwall’s always in need of a good scandal.”

Cullen brushed himself off. “Herah, that might be true.” It wasn’t, but for argument’s sake, he let it slide. “But that doesn’t mean _I_ want to be the source of that scandal.”

Adaar’s eyes widened, a hint of vulnerability in them. Until she spoke, he didn’t realize why. “You actually know my name.”

“Of course I do.” He huffed. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Instead of answering, she darted forward, more nimble than her bulk would suggest, and pressed another kiss against his mouth. “You’re more full of surprises than I might have expected.”

Face heating, he ducked his head. “Look,” he said, scrambling for better words than were coming to mind, “let’s just take this somewhere more private than this, okay? I’ll buy you a drink or something.” That was what people did, right? Buy one another drinks?

Adaar— _Herah,_ he could call her that now, he thought _—_ nodded and grabbed his hand. “Sounds good to me, Templar.”

He smiled.

Yes, he thought, it was very good indeed.


End file.
